


True love & happiness

by Melime



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 07:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13852956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime
Summary: Emma and Regina talk about their love and their soulmate marks.





	True love & happiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wishingonlightning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishingonlightning/gifts).
  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Amor verdadeiro & felicidade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13997808) by [Melime GreenLeaf (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime%20GreenLeaf)



> Soulmate AU where your soulmate marks change as you grow closer/fall in love with your soulmate.
> 
> Thank you to my beta [Alfer](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Alfer)!

Emma followed the shape of Regina’s soul-mark with a feather-light touch, not wanting to wake her. The edges were becoming sharper still, even after all the years they knew each other. She wondered when it would stop, when would it be complete. It seemed impossible to love Regina more than she already did, and it was true that the changes were becoming slower and subtler, but if she paid close attention she could still see those changes. Like increasing resolutions in smartphones, the changes seemed irrelevant, but they were still there.

Regina sighed under her touch, stretching lazily and opening her eyes slowly, blinking into conscience. “Morning,” she said with a yawn.

Emma smiled at the evidence of how much she had thoroughly exhausted Regina the night before. “Good morning,” she said, giving her a quick kiss.

As she leaned in, her own soul-mark briefly touched against Regina’s, sending a jolt of electricity that was so familiar at that point, but always as exciting as the first time.

“What were you doing?” Regina asked as they parted, her eyes still glossy with sleep.

Emma looked down, tracing the soul-mark on Regina’s lower abdomen, just a little to the right. Almost in perfect mirror position to Emma’s mark. “I was thinking about the first time I saw this, how different it looked from now.”

Regina smiled. The first time she saw her own soul-mark, when magic returned to Storybrooke and soulmates could find each other once again, it was just a white stain. Not the same as it had been in the Enchanted Forest, but she had changed so much during her life, it wasn’t a surprise her soul-mark would change. Rather, she was surprised to even have one, at that point she had long since given up ever finding love again.

“I couldn’t tell it was a swan until we first kissed,” Regina said. Before that, when she was still struggling with her feelings for Emma, it had looked closer to a squished boiled egg. Not exactly the most romantic thing. Then she noticed Emma’s coy smile. “What?”

“My first guess was an upside down balloon,” she confessed. And fine, maybe that meant she wasn’t all that romantic, but also, calling it a swan at that point would have been a huge stretch.

Back then, the white was still spread around too much, not forming any clear lines. Now, not only it was clearly a swan, but a rather stylized one, all lean and full of swirls. From an abstract shape to a minimalist representation of her, changing as their love, and their connection, grew.

“A balloon with wings and a beak?” Regina asked with a raised eyebrow.

“The first time I saw mine I thought it was a bad bruise or an even worse rash, if that makes things better,” Emma said.

Of course, back then she didn’t know what a soul-mark was, or even that soulmates were real. She just woke up with a dark stain on her skin, almost black, with just a touch of deep red on some points. It didn’t look like anything, except perhaps a color-reversed chocolate chip cookie.

“I knew what it was, right away,” Regina said, touching Emma’s mark.

It was the same size as Regina’s, but denser. A beautiful apple tree, with perfect bilateral symmetry, the trunk, branches and leaves pitch black, and the apples a lively red. Not only the shape had become clearer with time, the colors also became richer. It was like a work of art.

“I still don’t understand how these designs work,” Emma said.

“Magic. The same kind of magic as a true love’s kiss. I’ve even heard of platonic soulmates,” Regina said, although she didn’t know enough about this kind of magic to know its inner mechanics.

“But what makes them look like this?” Most magic she knew looked like dust or energy, not like well designed tattoos.

Regina thought about it, then shrugged. “It’s magic. I can no sooner explain why hearts glow once they leave the body. It’s just the way magic works.”

“I have a feeling this is the kind of situation where things work better if you don’t think too much about them.” After all, clinging to the rules of the world she grew up in always got between her and accepting magic.

“Magic is about visualizing what you want to happen, how you want to transform the world around you, even if you can’t exactly see what you want to happen,” Regina said, determined to give Emma a proper answer. “And soul-marks only begin to take shape once soulmates interact. Maybe it’s about what symbolism people associate with their soulmates.”

Emma nodded. It made sense, the apple tree was a clear symbol of Regina. Although maybe Emma wouldn’t have conscientiously imagined it like this, but then again, she doubted Regina imagined her like that swan.

“How will we know when they are complete?” Emma asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe that part is just a legend, maybe they always keep changing because feelings always change.”

“That’s romantic,” Emma said, then kissed her softly. “It doesn’t matter anyway. All that matters is that I love you, and that I’ll keep loving you.” She didn’t need a mark on her skin to tell her that, although having confirmation that they were soulmates in an universe where true love was the most powerful magic of it all didn’t hurt.

Regina’s expression shifted, pain clear in her face as she remembered all the suffering love had brought to her before. “I never thought I could have this, sometimes it’s still hard to believe. But I love you, and no power in this or any relm can keep me from loving you.”

Regina kissed her again, deeper this time. After so much pain, she had stood in the way of her own happy ending for far too long, and only kept on suffering with that. But everything lead her to that, and now she had her happily ever after, and she wouldn’t change anything about that.

**Author's Note:**

> Funny enough I described their soulmate marks first, then went looking for references. Regina's soulmate looks something like [this](http://mariafresa.net/single/2502779.html) but in white, and Emma's looks like [this](https://www.istockphoto.com/br/vetor/silhueta-de-%C3%A1rvore-de-ma%C3%A7%C3%A3-gm165605700-7623067) but with the apples red.


End file.
